Dear readers,
I am creating a no-buy list, of authors I never want to buy books from because of my principles. I am aware this is difficult – the separation of art and artist is a difficult conversation and it’s not my intention with this post. I would like to make sure I have all the information I need before buying books and make sure I don’t forget someone I wouldn’t like to buy books from.
I’ll add it to my Bullet Journal lists, which I carry with me when I go out anyways, so it’s easy to check before buying! Paper Fury has a great discussion in this post about this theme.
This in no way is a judgment of the people who decide to separate art and artist, not at all. But it doesn’t work for me
Below are the ones I’ve already added. Please help me and send names + reasons why (if you have a reference, even better!!) so I don’t support the work of people who are pure garbage.
- Orson Scott Card, best known for Ender’s Game – https://www.glaad.org/cap/orson-scott-card
- Road Dahl, best known for Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and other works – https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/roald-dahl-the-bad-influence-1.2775842
- Bret Easton Ellis, best known for American Psycho – https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/jerk-authors-_n_3873354.html
Naty's Bookshelf 
Hi, I’m a little confused here. Could you please tell me more about the purpose of this list? What causes you to refuse buying books written by these authors?
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I think that before she supports an author with buying, reading, reviewing a book written by them, she will be checking more like their background to do so. She is sharing that she will not buy books from the. Guy of Enders Game because he is totally and outrageously against equality of marriage and LGBTQI rights… It seems 🙂
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Exactly! That is what I meant to do with this post. I didn’t know these things about those people until recently, and there are some things I wouldn’t like to support – homophobia being one of them. I don’t mind if authors are a bit rude or just have a lifestyle I don’t agree with, but being publicly against the rights of a group of people isn’t okay with me, so I’d rather not support those people in particular. As said, separating the art from the artist is difficult and is a choice everyone has the right to make – I just made a choice not to support them. But it’s fine if you choose to – I just want people to have all the information they need to make a decision 🙂
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Totally to all you just said! As my bf said, they are still humans, we cannot expect them to be super illuminated humans
I think we will consider this before making any decisions but If you wouldn’t have mentioned this, I wouldn’t have know 🙂
Thank you!! 🙂
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This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately- especially in light of the news that has been coming out lately! I will never read a book by James Dasher or Jay Asher for example. I am sure you have seen this but I will link an article anyway! https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/15/two-childrens-authors-dropped-by-agents-amid-claims-of-sexual-harassment
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Well I wouldn’t buy any book after the second one… And with the second one I am pushing it too hard xD
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Thanks for the link, I will read it!!
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Jeez, what a bunch of wankers! I’m kinda gutted about the dude who wrote Ender’s Game, because i had my eyes on that book for a while. Now i’m not sure. I mean what could possibly this dude tell me that is so amazing when he says all those things about real people…?
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They are!!! That’s why I don’t wanna support them… but yeah, it sucks!! I wanted to read Matilda, but now I think I won’t…. but it’s your choice if you want to read the book, as said, I’m not here to judge what people read 😀
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Hey this is is heavy! I didn’t know anything about this. :O my boyfriend is so into enders and I get to know this 😮
But I think it is really dificult to separate their work and their “Behavior”. Like they might have written great and amazing books that maybe marked this era, but getting to know this is a bit of a disappointment… But aren’t we expecting, sadly, too much for a writer? I get the idea that you are supposed to be intelligent and be a studied one, open minded progressive socialists but maybe we are like that… And they are old school… I don’t know… This is so complicated…
But I have made a decision like this before mainly with the Outlander author.
Thank you for sharing!! 🙂
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Thank you for your comment, Satou!! Yes, it’s a difficult decision, and for me it’s totally okay if you separate art from artist…. the art can indeed be amazing, and depending on how we judge the authors we can end up being too harsh. So if your boyfriend loves Ender’s Game, that’s absolutely fine, I just want people to have all the information they need before making a decision. I personally would’ve been heart broken to read books by those authors and then find out information like this about them, so I want to help people avoid making decisions they didn’t know enough about to make.
Also, with so many books and authors around, I think it’s impossible to make a “background study” on all of them, and many awful people might just hide their behavior and we keep buying their books because we don’t know that they are antisemitic, homophobic etc… So it’s a complicated matter that doesn’t have a perfect solution.
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We all have our skeletons hidden and at the end we don’t always show our true colors. I guess that at some point they will pop up
but yes, we shouldn’t be so harsh at the end we are all human and we all have our flaws. It’s like this whole movement against JK Rowling… And Johnny Deep. 
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I’m with you on Orson Scott Card. Once I learned more about him, I realized I never wanted to support him in any way. I don’t have any other authors on my “no-buy” list at the moment, but I certainly would if I learned something awful about an author I’d considered reading.
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Right?? I was so sad to learn about Road Dahl, I really wanted to read Matilda. But there are many amazing books out there by amazing people, so it’s no problem! 😀
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This is such a great post! I’ve been trying lately to read about the authors I’m reading to make sure our morals more or less line up — I’d just rather not support people who are terrible. Great list, too!
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This is such an awesome post thanks for sharing and enlightening me. ill look more into authors. I am really shocked about Road Dahl, he was one of my favorite authors a child.
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Thank you so much! Yes, it was so disappointing… I loved Matilda as a kid.
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I loved the witches but then again it was the times and his age, doesn’t make it right though.
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Ender’s Game is a brilliant book, it’s such a shame the author is such an ass. I read it back in high school and loved it, then found out about his insane homophobia a few years later. I can sometimes be more forgiving depending on the severity of their beliefs (Brandon Sanderson is one of my favourite authors, but he doesn’t believe in gay marriage. Nothing malicious like Orson Scott Card, he just doesn’t believe in it. Which is stupid. But I still read his books — I just keep that in mind).
Authors getting added to my list lately are the creeps like James Dashner and authors like Benjamin Alire Sáenz who attack reviewers and bloggers.
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